Brecon and Radnorshire recall petition

A Tory MP convicted for making a false expenses claim is facing a petition that could see him lose his seat.

Commons speaker John Bercow will ask officials to open a recall petition once Chris Davies is sentenced, with a by-election to be held if 10% of the MP's constituents sign it.

The Brecon and Radnorshire MP was convicted last Friday.

Davies, 51, admitted to two charges relating to creating false invoices for £700 worth of photographs


The issue is whether a snap election in the meantime overrides this. In any case, the fact that this is the third use of recall legislation suggests that it is sadly very necessary .

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edwin_m said:

The link says a general election in the meantime would cancel the recall. But presumably he'd be able to stand again, which doesn't make much sense.

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PR1Berske said:

I wonder if it is a good thing that MPs are being "caught", where once they may have escaped justice, or if it's all rather a depressing truth about the Commons!

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PR1Berske said:

Yeah, I think you've just stumbled across a loophole. MPs who do lose their seats through Recall are permitted to stand in the resulting by-elections BUT, as you have pointed out, if a general election does get called, he could stand as a candidate (though, I guess, not for the Conservatives).

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DynamicSpirit said:

Obviously it's a good thing when anyone who's done something wrong gets caught, whatever job they do.

In terms of, depressing truth about the Commons - No, not really. People love to think ill of MPs, but there are 650 MPs, three of whom have faced recalls due to doing something wrong. I would imagine if you take any random group of 650 people, you'd find rather more than a couple amongst them who are dishonest. So 3 MPs getting recalled isn't really going to be statistically significant in terms of making out that there's something intrinsically bad about the Commons - although it's obviously a bad reflection on those particular MPs. And of course, to a large extent the publicity and the recall reflects that MPs (rightly) face far greater scrutiny than most of the population.

Also worth bearing in mind: Of the three MPs, Chris Davies and Fiona Onasanya have clearly committed crimes. Ian Paisley's recall was due to his having failed to declare that he had received hospitality from the Sri Lankan Government. That's misconduct as far as Parliamentary rules are concerned, but wasn't a crime. And in quite a few other occupations outside politics, and outside public service, that would probably pass almost unnoticed. I'm not particularly trying to defend him - as obviously what he did was unethical and fell below the standards expected of MPs. But to some extent that's because MPs are held to much higher standards than the rest of us. I think that's worth bearing in mind before you conclude that this episode shows that MPs are somehow inherently bad.

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LivingBelowYM said:

Is this likely to mean a different party being elected? If not, this is of little consequence.

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A by-election will be held in Brecon and Radnorshire after 10,005 people signed a petition to remove the constituency's Tory MP, Chris Davies.

Mr Davies was convicted of a false expenses claim in March .

A total of 19% of the constituency's electorate signed the petition - the threshold is 10%.

Confirming his intention to stand again, Mr Davies said he "looked forward to regaining" the trust of Brecon and Radnorshire.

"I am naturally disappointed with the result," he said.

"What happened was my fault and no one else's."

Mr Davies is the third MP to have faced a recall petition and the second to be unseated through the process .

Tory leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt said : "Whatever the rights and wrongs of his expenses claim, I have only ever known Chris Davies as a decent and honest man and a very diligent local MP."

The recall petition was triggered after Mr Davies's conviction for an offence relating to how photographs for his constituency office were invoiced.

He had tried to split the cost of £700 worth of pictures between two office budgets by creating fake invoices, when he could have claimed the amount by other means.

The politician made an "unreserved apology" following his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court in April, whenhe was fined £1,500 and told to carry out 50 hours of community service .

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The Liberal Democrats have won the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, leaving new PM Boris Johnson with a Commons working majority of just one.

Jane Dodds overturned an 8,038 majority to beat incumbent Conservative Chris Davies by 1,425 votes.

Mr Davies decided to stand again after being unseated by a petition following his conviction for a false expenses claim.

It was the first electoral test for Mr Johnson since becoming prime minister.

Now, with a particularly wafer-thin working majority, he will have to rely heavily on the support of his own MPs and his confidence-and-supply partners the DUP to get any legislation passed in key votes.

It was also a bad night for Labour, whose vote share dropped by 12.4% as they were beaten into fourth place by the Brexit Party.

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PR1Berske said:

The Liberal Democrats have gained Brecon and Radnorshire.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-49200636

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Mr Davies decided to stand again after being unseated by a petition following his conviction for a false expenses claim.

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dosxuk said:

On the bright side, it was nice to see the monster raving loonies beating UKIP.

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Alistair G. said:

As stated above Sheffield Hallam is due to have a bi election soon and I think that’s another seat going the Lib Dem way. Sadly (I guess depending on your political persuasion) it is currently a labour seat so won’t turn over the working majority of 1 if my prediction did come to fruition.

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edwin_m said:

Shows the importance of parties with similar views on the main issue of the day co-operating in our unfair electoral system. In this case it was the Remain side that got their act together, but it could easily be the other way round elsewhere especially while Labour remains ambiguous on Brexit.

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Alteran Ancient said:

Sheffield has historically been a Lib Dem seat. They only lost it to Labour in 2017 because the electorate wanted to punish Nick Clegg, and even then he only lost it by a 3.8% difference.

So as fun as it is to have a by-election (which is another thing that the Lib Dems seem to be very good at winning), the Liberals winning Hallam won't directly take another seat from Boris. But you never know. There could always be another recall petition, resignation, defection or death between now and the end of October.

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EM2 said:

I saw James Cleverly (nominative non-determinism?) on the BBC this morning decrying the 'dirty back room deal' done by the LibDems, Plaid and Greens in Brecon.
Bearing in mind that his Government is only in power because of the support of ten DUP MPs (a party that polled less than than 300,000 votes), a well-known phrase relating to stones and glass houses came to mind.

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